Dawnwind 1: Last Man Standing

by George R. Shirer

  “You should be trying to organize rescue efforts!” shouted John.

  Dotep flinched back, surprised at the raw ferocity in John’s voice. “Why? What’s the point? Who’s going to come? Who’s going to help us? The colonists?” His lip curled. “Don’t make me laugh! We’re all going to die. The best thing to do is accept our fate gracefully.”

  “You,” said John, gritting his teeth, “are a useless waste of skin.”

  “I don’t care what you think,” said Dotep. “I don’t care what you do. Give me my mod and go away.”

  John threw the mod at the man and spun away. Dotep cried out and flailed madly for the tiny silver discus. By the time John’s group left the room, Dotep had the neuro-mod reattached to his temple. His group had resumed their game.

  “Told you,” said Sebo.

  They were in the corridor, which was mostly empty. More and more people were retiring to rooms with their friends, gathering in groups to wait for the end.

  “This is bullshit,” said John. “How can everyone just sit down and wait to die?”

  “No one wants to die, John,” protested Pimuqi. “But what else can we do?”

  “Fight,” said John. “Fight to live!”

  “Why? Uxipe will still come for us, to bear us down the River of Sleep.”

  John frowned at Pimuqi. “I think Sebo’s fatalism might be contagious.”

  Surprisingly, Sebo chuckled. “So, what do you want to do now, human?”

  “Nodomi said there was a Fifth floating around somewhere?”

  The medic nodded. “Fifth Allocator Jebim.”

  “Let’s go see him,” said John.

  “Why? Do you think he’ll take the burden of command?”

  John scowled. “Someone’s got to!”

  * * * * *

  Tes Jebim was tending a room full of wounded. The old man looked up as John’s group blocked the doorway.

  “Unless you’ve come to die, go away,” said the old man.

  He was pressing an injector into the neck of a young man. The fellow floated, still and silent, his skin having taken on a waxy, yellowish tint. His hair looked brittle and dry. The other people in the room displayed similar symptoms.

  Nodomi pushed her way into the room and went to the nearest crewmember. She looked at Jebim. “Radburst?”

  Jebim nodded. “Everyone here was near the core.”

  “Including you?” asked the medic.

  The old man snorted. “Not as near as these, but near enough. They’ll float down the river first, but I’ll be close behind them.” He chuckled. “Strange. I never thought I’d die like this.” He scratched his neck. “I always thought the Utofi would kill me.”

  John glared at the man. “How can I be the only person here who isn’t resigned to dying?”

  “You aren’t,” said Nodomi.

  “I suppose hope does bloom eternally,” said Jebim. “What do you want?”

  “We were hoping you might take command,” said John. “Get people working on a rescue.”

  Jebim shook his head. “I would if I had time, but I don’t.” He held up his hands. His fingertips were yellowish. “You know what this means,” said Jebim, looking at Nodomi.

  “Organ failure,” said the medic. She reached out, clasped the old man’s shoulder. “I’m afraid you don’t have much time. A few hours maybe.”

  Jebim nodded. “I know.”

  “There has to be something we can do!” raged John.

  The old man shook his head. “There isn’t. We’re floating, dead in the water.” He tapped his comm. “We’ve got no communications and the emergency beacons aren’t broadcasting.”

  “Probably blown apart with the command,” said Sebo.

  “I always knew Fe would go down hard, but I never thought he’d take all of us with him,” said Jebim.

  “What about the transports?” asked John. He turned to Sebo. “Has anyone been to the transport bay?”

  The defender nodded. “They depressurized. The transports were sucked out.”

  “So you see,” said Jebim. “There really isn’t anything to do but wait and pray for an easy death.”

  “I refuse to accept that,” said John.

  Sebo snorted. “What are you going to do? Build a comm array out of thin air?”

  John blinked, stared at the defender. “What did you say?”

  “I said, what are you going to do? Build a comm array out of thin air?”

  “Maybe not thin air,” said John, eyes wide. “But what about stores?”

  Tes Jebim stared at the human. “Merciful pantheon.”

  “What?” said Sebo, frowning. “What?”

  “There are replacement components for primary systems in the ship’s hold,” said Jebim. He tugged on his earrings. “In case of an emergency.”

  “I’d say this constitutes an emergency,” said John.

  Sebo was looking back and forth between John and Jebim. “You can’t honestly build a comm array from scratch. Can you?”

  “I have some engineering,” said John, “but I’m not a specialist.”

  “But there are bound to be engineers and technicians here!” shouted Jebim.

  “I’ve been taking engineering courses,” said Pimuqi. Her eyes were wide and bright. “After this tour, I was going to specialize!”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Interrupted Nodomi. “Can we even get to the ship’s holds? Deck three was almost as badly compromised as deck one.”

  “In the forward section,” said Sebo. “But not the aft. It’s compromised, yes, but it won’t be open to hard vacuum.”

  The allocator shook his head. “You won’t need to go to deck three. The component’s we’ll need are on this deck.”

  Pimuqi laughed. “Transport components! Of course!”

  “Exactly!” said Jebim.

  “That’ll make putting together the array even easier,” enthused Pimuqi. “Transport components are all modular! Just slip, slide and click!”

  “What about power?” asked Nodomi.

  “Transport power packs,” said John.

  “Can we do this?” asked Sebo. “Really?”

  John laughed. “What have we got to lose?”

  * * * * *

  They scattered like leaves, leaping down the corridors, rousting crewmembers from their rooms, infecting them with the possibility of hope. Pimuqi and Jebim led a caravan of engineers and technicians to the aft storage holds, to find what they would need. Nodomi drafted every medic she could find, to gather the wounded into a makeshift infirmary. Groups were dispatched, beyond the crew quarters to gather up additional emergency kits.

  An hour later, Pimuqi’s team returned, laden with supplies and equipment. The engineers and technicians separated into two groups, one to work on the comm array, the other to put together the power system.

  Cleric Til took John aside. “Have you thought about what will happen if this doesn’t work?”

  “If we can’t get the comm array working,” said John, “we still have other options we can explore.”

  “Such as?”

  “The biggest threat is Napiso’s gravity. If we start to fall into it....”

  “How do you propose to overcome gravity?” asked the cleric. “We have no impellers.”

  “That’s why I sent Sebo and a bunch of others to the aft munitions stores. If we have to, we can detonate the munitions outside the ship to push us into a higher orbit.”

  Til stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  John nodded at a group of science specialists, floating in a tight hub. Each specialist had a PIN, networked into the others.

  “They’re working on the math now. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

  “Let’s hope not,” said the cleric. Quietly, she murmured, “You’re a little mad, aren’t you?”

  John looked at her, smiled, and shrugged. “Maybe just a little.”

  * * * * *

  About two hours later, the comm array was assembled and
connected to the power packs. “We’re ready,” said Pimuqi. “But I’d like to go over the assembly one last time....”

  “Pim, you’ve been saying that for the last hour,” said John. “Just turn the cursed thing on.”

  She glanced at the comm specialist they had found, a man called Laxan. He floated at the comm array’s control board.

  “Ready?”

  Laxan nodded, grinned nervously. “Ice-blue.”

  “Powering up,” announced Pimuqi.

  The entire corridor went deathly silent. A moment later, there was a mass exhalation of breath, as the comm array’s screens powered up and began to run through diagnostics.

  “Transmitting distress signal,” announced Laxan. “Broadcasting on all frequencies.”

  People drifted closer, clasped hands. Here and there, someone murmured a prayer. Cleric Til had removed her bloodied scarf from her arm and was winding and unwinding it around her slim, pale hands.

  The comm panel chirped.

  “We’re being hailed!”

  The silence was replaced by a roar of celebration. People burst into tears, pounded one another on the back.

  “Quiet!” roared Sebo.

  Laxan was floating, head tilted to one side in the typical manner of someone listening to a message on a comm.

  “It’s a Colony ship. The Pefini. They’re about to head into orbit to salvage the positional beacons. They’re asking what kind of assistance we need?”

  John glanced around the crowded corridor. People’s faces seemed illuminated. He felt himself smiling in reflex.

  “Lonely souls, man!” said Sebo, laughing. “Tell them we need all the assistance we can get!”

  * * * * *

  The Crimson Star arrived in the Napiso system two days after detecting the Harmonious Maiden’s danger-beacon. Although the information on the beacon was minimal, the Star’s First Officer took no chances, ordering her pilot and navigator to bring the vessel out of shuntspace as close to Napiso as possible.

  The Crimson Star appeared out of nowhere, shields up and weapons primed. Sensors immediately detected a debris field in a high planetary orbit. There was no sign of hostiles in the area, but the First ordered shields to remain up until they could contact the colony, and assess the situation. Ten minutes after contact had been established with Napiso, First Officer Desu was planetbound, accompanied by her First Defender and First Medic.

  The transport dropped through the planet’s thin atmosphere, the pilot using minimal contragrav to slow their descent. Latching onto the landing field’s directional beacon, the transport swept over an arid landscape of red rock.

  “Ugly place,” muttered First Defender Tomo.

  “Keep your opinion to yourself when we get downside,” ordered Desu. “We don’t want to offend these people. It sounds like they’ve been through enough the last few days.”

  The colony transport hub appeared suddenly, a selection of ugly, squat buildings standing alone in the wilderness. Surrendering transport control to the local automated system, Desu and her colleagues watched on screens as the domed roof beneath them flowered open. They descended into the opening. The dome sealed behind them.

  “I feel like I’ve just been swallowed,” murmured First Medic Pucala. She grinned, wanly, at Desu. “Let’s hope we don’t taste bitter.”

  The transport landed and the pilot reported a standard environment beyond the hatch. As Desu and her companions exited the transport, a pressure door across the landing bay cycled open. An old man with short, white hair and the dark skin of someone frequently exposed to high levels of solar radiation, stalked toward them. He was shadowed by a pair of men in the blue and pink uniforms of peacekeepers.

  “I’m Administrator Sej,” said the old man, stick-like fingers flashing to his shoulders.

  “First Officer Desu, of the Crimson Star.” She brushed the old man’s fingers. “My colleagues, First Defender Tomo and First Medic Pucala.”

  The administrator glanced at them. “We could have used you people a few days back.”

  “Once we detected the Harmonious Maiden’s danger-beacon, we came as quickly as we could, administrator.” Desu kept her tone carefully neutral.

  “What happened?” asked Tomo.

  Sej snorted. “The Sewkari attacked. They raided a manufacturing complex.”

  “How many people were hurt?” asked Pucala.

  “We lost almost two hundred,” said Sej. He made no effort to hide his bitterness, his anger.

  Desu touched the administrator’s hands. “I’m so sorry for your losses.”

  “Be sorry for your own,” snapped Sej. He twitched his hands away. “The Harmonious Maiden drove off the Sewkari filth, but they took heavy losses themselves.”

  “How many?” asked Desu.

  “Eighty-four survived,” said Sej.

  The First reeled back, shocked. She had familiarized herself with the Maiden’s specs and its officers en route to Napiso. It was half the size of the Star, with a normal crew complement of over four hundred.

  Seeing Desu’s reaction, a guilty look flashed across Administrator Sej’s weathered face, then vanished. He turned, waved them after him. “Come. I’ll take you to them.”

  He led them to a ground station, where a lozenge-shaped travel capsule waited. They settled inside, the doors sealed with a hiss, and they began to move. The capsule was windowless, the interior walls made of a smooth, pale green material that didn’t appear to be nano-active at all. Desu attempted to engage Sej, but the colony administrator wasn’t interested in conversation.

  A few moments later, the capsule came to a stop. The doors hissed open and the group exited. They found themselves standing on a stone platform, in a large subterranean cavern. The roof of the cavern arched several hundred feet overhead, forming a dome of rock and metal. Tower-like structures rose from the cavern’s floor, to merge with the dome. There were doorways visible in the bases of the structures, suggesting that they served as both residences and support-structures. Between the towers, were flowering gardens and green lawns. Free-floating light-spheres orbited these green spaces. Stone paths wound between the gardens, connecting the towers.

  “Impressive,” murmured Pucala.

  Sej grunted, but seemed pleased with her remark.

  “How did you construct the chamber?” asked Tomo.

  “Nanos,” said Sej. “They chewed out the cavern in less than a week. I was part of the engineering team that supervised the construction.”

  They walked to the nearest tower, and Sej led them inside. Desu noted, with approval, the presence of heavy-duty pressure doors, mounted above the entryway. The Crimson Star officers found themselves in a large chamber. The floor was covered in dark green and bright yellow tiles. Static murals adorned the walls, depicting pivotal moments in Napiso’s brief history. At the center of the chamber was a large communal swimming pool, filled with iridescent blue water. Set around the pool were several lounging chairs. Many were occupied. There were children, Desu saw, splashing about in the pool.

  Their arrival was noticed. The adults at the pool stopped to stare at the guardsmen. Sej waved, vaguely, and led Desu and her colleagues to an elevator. Somewhere between the capsule station and the tower, the peacekeepers had discreetly vanished.

  The elevator lurched upward, fourteen levels, and came to a shuddering stop. Sej waved everyone out, into a carpeted hallway. He led them past sealed doors, many of them displaying the frost white colors of mourning. Around a bend in the corridor, the administrator stopped in front of another mourning-white door.

  “The people you’ll want to talk to are here,” said Sej. “I’ll leave you to your interviews, First. When you’re finished, comm me. I’ll be around.”

  He didn’t wait for a response, just turned and left. The three officers glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.

  “Brisk little man, isn’t he?” said Tomo.

  “Can you blame him?” asked Pucala. “This colony’s lost a quarter
of its population in the last three days. That’s bound to make anyone chilly.”

  “Enough,” said Desu. “I want to find out what happened aboard the Maiden.” She brushed the chime-board with her fingertips.

  A moment later, the door slid open. An old man, short and stout, with short dust-colored hair stood there. He wore a green-and-black Guard shipsuit, but with a white band around his right arm. His face was as bare as a newborn’s. His black eyes were sharp and took in the three officers at a glance.

  “First Officer,” said Tes Jebim. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  There were a dozen people in the guest suite, all of them barefaced, all of them wearing the white mourning ban over their uniforms. Most were silent, simply there to witness the exchange between the old man and the Crimson Star’s First Officer.

  Jebim waved Desu to a chair, and sat, heavily in its opposite. As soon as he sat, a guardsman wearing a cleric’s scarf appeared at his side, laying a hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you strong enough for this, Jebim?” asked the woman.

  He patted the cleric’s hand. “Of course.”

  “Are you ill?” asked Pucala.

  “I’m dying, miss. Systemic organ failure.”

  Pucala’s brow knit together and Desu knew the medic was fighting the urge to pull on a handscanner and confirm the diagnosis. Jebim had obviously read Pucala’s reaction.

  “There’s nothing to be done,” he said. “I’m comfortable, and the medics here have numbed most of the pain.”

  Desu glanced at Jebim’s crewmates, assembled behind him. “Perhaps someone else should speak? Another officer?”

  “There is no one else,” said Jebim. “And I’m not an officer, ma’am. All the officers were killed aboard the Maiden.”

  “You’re the senior ranking guardsman?” asked Tomo.

  “I am.”

  Desu nodded. “Then tell me what happened, Mr. Jebim, in your own time.”

  * * * * *

  Jebim talked. Tomo recorded what he said. Desu listened, calmly asking questions only to clarify points, here and there. The interview took about two hours. After the old man had finished, he produced a PIN and handed it to Desu.